This was published yesterday in the Washington Post. Mann is from the Brookings Institute, a progressive think tank. Ornstein is from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Together, from opposite sides of the political perspective, they have put together the definitive piece on today’s upsetting problem.

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Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other…